


Just a Dream

by Santhe



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Comfort, Gen, Nightmares, Post-Sburb, Pre-Sburb, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 22:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Santhe/pseuds/Santhe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave occasionally has nightmares. Bro reacts, and so does Dirk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bro's Refrain

You don’t know what’s chasing you. You never do.  
  
Vague, dark shapes, too fast, always too fast. Even for you.  
  
They lunge for you, out of the mist. Never visible until they strike.  
  
You run, keep running, not fast enough. Run until you reach the edge.  
  
Attacked by the demons behind you or plunge to your death below?  
  
Instinct makes you stop. Try to, at least.  
  
You skid, something catches your back, but you fall anyway  
  
plunging down  
  
no stopping  
  
gravity  
  
ground.  
  
Your own yell wakes you.  
  
It’s just as dark when your eyes fly open as you twist on the bed, sheets looped around your bare legs.  
  
Shadows blanket the room, all still, but your frightened mind makes them move, jump at you, vivid as the monsters of your dreams. You’ve yelled again before you can stop it, and you muffle it to a whimper before it gets to its loudest.  
  
Too late.  
  
There’s a soft tap of a foot against the floor and you twist further in your sheets, part of you knowing you can’t fight while tangled up in them and the more childish part believing that strange sense that if you are under the covers, nothing can touch you.  
  
Which is stupid.  
  
But the faded light from the city through the windowpanes outlines the figure you hoped not to wake. You can’t bring yourself to tell him you’re fine, although you do open your mouth to.  
  
Even though you’re too old for nightmares- you’re in double digits know, your imagination should not still be haunting you like this- there’s a comfort to having him here.  
  
You’ve had nightmares before. Not frequently, just on occasion. Usually you wake up in paralyzed silence long before you yell.  
  
Usually is not tonight.  
  
Tonight you are sweaty and shaking and damn near close to crying.  
  
Which you will not do with Bro standing there, arms crossed loosely over his stomach, eyebrows raised slightly as his bare eyes survey your shaking body.  
  
Was he even asleep? Despite lack of a shirt, pants, and glasses, he’s still partially garbed- hat perched on his hair, fingerless gloves tight on his hands, loose checkered boxers covering half his thighs.  
  
He’s just staring at you, expressionless as always, and you stare back from the far side of your bed, both of you unblinking.  
  
“You okay, kid?”  
  
You try to speak, choke on your dry throat, cough a few times, and get it out in a voice that is far too ragged. “Yeah, I’m fine.”  
  
He gives a quiet, disbelieving snort and you cringe, just a little.  
  
You let your eyes slide shut slowly, trying to calm down, trying to breathe and get control. Get control, regain the cool, dispel the shadows, because they are not real. Not real.  
  
“Want me to stay?” You’re surprised at the offer. And you do want him to stay, you really do. But you’re not sure if you can say that out loud.  
  
Fortunately, you’re both Striders and Striders don’t need to use actual words unless they want to.  
  
His movements are noiseless, but your eyes fly open when his fingers touch your shoulder, push you a little further back on the bed, and tug the sheets back down to your feet. He sits on the edge of it, and you watch him in silent confusion, not sure whether to be glad or embarrassed at his apparent attempt to help.  
  
He pulls the cap off his head by the bill and drops it upside down on his legs. He unstraps the fingerless gloves and carefully pulls them off, drops them into the hat, and places it on your bedside table, next to your shades.  
  
You’re still shaking, even though the heat this time of year is awful. Which means there is no way you could pass it off for shivering, which makes it uncool and you are glad Bro isn’t actually looking at you.  
  
You think he isn’t, anyway. Hard to tell, since Cal has inexplicably appeared on the pillow above you since he came in and you did not see him moved there. Oh, well.  
  
Bro swings his legs up onto the mattress and rolls onto his side, facing you. He doesn’t touch you again, doesn’t even look at you. Just lets one arm lie across the gap between you. A vague invitation that you have no obligation to accept.  
  
You do anyway. A tiny whimper escapes from the back of your throat as a siren goes off in the city, and you jerkily pull yourself onto his arm.  
  
The minute you touch him, he moves, pulling you closer against his chest and curling the other arm around you as well. You press your face to his collar like you’re trying to hide, breath in the smell of Bro- warm scents of sweat and sun, metallic ones of metal and blood, and the more domestic but fainter smell of soap.  
  
With your eyes shut, the vividness of the dream starts making a reappearance, and you are wracked with the not-shiver-shivers again.  
  
He pulls your shuddering body even closer to himself, presses his nose to your hair and whispers into it “Just a dream, little man. It’s gone now, it’s okay.”  
  
He sounds tired, you think you did wake him, but you don’t dwell on that now. Instead you just shake as he hushes you, and eventually quiets even from that, instead letting out a soft, low hum, an odd little song that lacks a melody but soothes you more than a lullaby.  
  
When he hums, his chest vibrates ever so slightly. Something you never would have noticed any further than a millimeter from him. His breathe layers into the song at even, predictable moments- inhale, pause, exhale, pause, inhale, pause, exhale, pause- and his heart thrums a gentle bass to the whole rhythm.  
  
The song only pauses for him to whisper it again, one more time, the air from his lips ruffling a few strands of loose hair. “Just a dream.”  
  
His quiet, soothing symphony sings you gently back to sleep.


	2. Dirk's Rhythm

You don’t know when it started again.  
  
Gears clinking softly, red glare on the cogs.  
  
Distant honking.  
  
Falling.  
  
Too far, falling too far, and as you fall, things flash by, dark shapes, twisted tentacles, black faces, purple towers,  
  
ragged clothing of garish colors, dog snout, slashed face,  
  
sword through his chest  
  
bullets through yours  
  
blood  
  
darkness  
  
ground.  
  
You wake up screaming.  
  
Reality comes slowly, much slower than the ground that slammed into your face.  
  
You try to choke it back, twisted in your blankets, cold sweat sticking to your body.  
  
You’re still shuddering, still blinking your eyes to adjust to the dark room, still on the brink between conscious and unconscious, when you realize there’s someone else in the room.  
  
You jerk back, slam your shoulder into the wall, and stare at him.  
  
Pale as a ghost, skin almost as light as yours, hair in messy spikes over his forehead, there’s only one person it could be.  
  
Except not, because after a brief moment of relief- thank god, it’s Bro, the dream wasn’t even real, he’s not dead, where’d you even come up with that?- you notice the differences.  
  
He’s not old enough. Just a few inches too short. Slightly thinner.  
  
It’s not Bro, but it is. Kind of. Except a Bro from a different universe, a Bro who’s no older than you are, a Bro who’s never seen you have a nightmare before and probably can’t even believe how lame this is.  
  
For a minute you just stare at each other. Neither of you are wearing shades. Actually, you’re both in boxers, only boxers. Yours red, his orange. You’re leaning back on tensed arms, panting, sweaty, tangled in the blanket, eyes wide. He’s standing straight and tall, shoulders back and relaxed, arms folded tightly across his chest. Eyes wide.  
  
“You ok?” His voice is deep. Just as deep as Bro’s, despite the age difference.  
  
You try to get control, quickly, you’ve already made a mess tonight, but now that you’re awake, in Dirk’s unfaltering stare, you’re starting to shake.  
  
“Fine.” Your voice is steady, if high pitched.  
  
If you weren’t a Strider, the little quirk of his eyebrow would have meant nothing. But because you are, you know exactly what it means. Basically “Yeah right,” “Stop shitting me,” and “What the hell is wrong with you?”  
  
Amazing, the things you can get from body language.  
  
But you just keep staring back at him. Fighting back a picture of the other him, flat on the ground, his own sword through his chest, blood and feathers pooled on the ground.  
  
It is horribly hot in here.  
  
A choked noise escapes your mouth as you hold back something remarkably like but definitely not a sob. Definitely not.  
  
“Nightmares?”  
  
You blink.  
  
“Heard you from my room.” He jerks his chin slightly, back to the left.  
  
“Don’t think you woke anyone else though.” Good.  
  
“Do you want me to leave?” You don’t actually know the answer to that.  
  
You don’t know how long he waits. A minute, maybe? Two?  
  
His hand pulls on the doorknob.  
  
“No.”  
  
He pauses, glances back.  
  
Shadows seem darker around him, pale as he is. They move when he closes the door again. Walks back to the edge of your bed on silent feet.  
  
You slowly lower yourself back down as he sits on the mattress.  
  
“Dude. You’re sweating worse than ARquiusprite.”  
  
You just watch him. Don’t bother resisting when he hooks his fingers under the edge of the covers and jerks the blankets off of you, letting them fall to the side. You should really push him off the bed, actually, especially when he shoves you over to make room for himself and flops down next to you. But you don’t.  
  
Memories are very bothersome things.  
  
He doesn’t touch you, doesn’t say anything else. Not about the nightmares, or the screams, or anything. Just lies there, arms behind his head, legs crossed, stretched out next to you. No hat, but still wearing those stupid black gloves. Blond hair, just a few shades darker than yours, a little more ginger. Taller than you, but not by much.  
  
So  
  
Much  
  
Like  
  
Bro.  
  
You can’t stay curled against the wall, not anymore. You catch another dry sob half way through your throat. Try to hold yourself back.  
  
Fail.  
  
You crawl over the few inches of space in the middle, between you pressed to the wall and him flopped on the edge. Give yourself into the weakness, just for a minute. Because it’s nighttime and Bro is dead and Dirk is not and you honestly just have no more fucks to give.  
  
You curl against him, press to his muscled side, and pray- ironically- that he won’t destroy you for touching him.  
  
That he’s not as different as you feared him to be.  
  
When he moves, you jump, but he’s not attacking, just shifting, lowering an arm down around you. Loosely, not trapping you, just a sort of odd hug. You see a little difference- the freckles across his cheek bones, there are more of them. Probably from living in the middle of the sun-bleached ocean his whole life. But his eyes, bright amber, pupils huge in the dark, are the same.  
  
You pull into it, head on his shoulder, forehead pressed to his neck. He is muscled and sturdy and thin, cold against your sweaty skin.  
  
He chuckles deep in his throat. “Chill, man. It was just a dream.”  
  
You exhale, the trembling slowing. Inhale, nose flush to his chest.  
  
He smells like Bro too. Kind of odd, actually. They must use the same soap.  
  
That… was a weird thought.  
  
Is it weird that you are currently cuddling with your homosexual brother from an alternate universe in your bed as a comfort for your nightmares?  
  
Yeah, probably.  
  
“Just a dream.”  
  
Screw it. You press as close to him as you can, letting his heartbeat slowly lull you back to sleep.  
  
Heartbeats, breath, and a barely audible hum.  
  
Just like always.


End file.
